Gov. Walker: Plans for Financial Martial Law "Absolutely False"

highplainsdem

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Mon Apr-18-11 02:35 PM
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Gov. Walker: Plans for Financial Martial Law "Absolutely False"

Edited on Mon Apr-18-11 03:00 PM by highplainsdem

Source: WTAQ.com

Gov. Walker: Plans for Financial Martial Law "Absolutely False"
Posted Monday April 18, 2011

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (WTAQ) - Governor Scott Walker said Monday it’s “absolutely false” that he’s working on a financial stress test that local governments would have to pass – or else be taken over by the state.

The Republican Walker told Milwaukee radio talk show host Charlie Sykes that nobody on his staff or administration is working on such a plan. That’s after the GOP governor in Michigan, Rick Snyder, signed a similar bill that creates an emergency financial manager for such municipal takeovers.

Rick Ungar, a blogger for Forbes.Com, wrote that Walker is said to be working on having his own financial manager who could, “cancel union contracts, push aside duly-elected local government officials and school board members, and take control of Wisconsin cities and towns whenever he sees fit to do so.”

Ungar said attorneys from Foley and Lardner are writing up the plan – and it’s scheduled to be introduced in the GOP-controlled Legislature in May. The blogger said the Walker plan would give him, “unchallenged power to end municipal services of which he disapproves, including safety net assistance to those in need.”

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Read more: http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2011/apr/18/gov-walker-plans-financial-martial-law-absolutely-/

(Note: You'll have to try this shortened link: http://ow.ly/4CPxP I didn't test the link above before posting this story. The link I posted is correct, but it ends in a hyphen followed by a slash, and DU breaks the link. Here's a link to another story about this: http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/120058874.html )

I don't believe Walker. I think he's afraid of the negative reaction to this and trying to distance himself.

The reports about this didn't originate with Rick Ungar's Forbes blog, though that was the first post about it here in LBN.

It originated with Ed Garvey's blog at FightingBob.com, as I posted in GD a day before the Forbes story was posted here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x900810

Their website to promote this was set up back in February. The website DOES mention a "statewide fiscal stress test" (see the OP, which links to the page on the promotional website mentioning the stress test). Sen. Darling (one of the senators who might be recalled) co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee, and she's an ALEC member. There's no way she'd have spearheaded this project on her own.

And that site promoting this "reform" actually links to a CBS News story on Michigan's "financial martial law" -- which they apparently thought would help sell Wisconsinites on the plan.